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Brittney Griner impresses in first WNBA practice

PHOENIX — It was 6 a.m., and Brittney Griner was already awake, three hours earlier than usual. She was just too eager to end her publicity tour and get to the reason why she was traveling the country in the

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PHOENIX — It was 6 a.m., and Brittney Griner was already awake, three hours earlier than usual. She was just too eager to end her publicity tour and get to the reason why she was traveling the country in the first place.

Her initial practice with the Mercury, though, was still four hours away. "So I kind of just sat on the couch and watched the network where they sell you stuff," Griner said Monday after the Phoenix Mercury opened training camp. "I don't know. I was so bored."

So once 7:30 hit, it was deemed close enough. Time to, finally, play basketball.

Griner arrived 90 minutes before practice began, one of the first to arrive at US Airways Center. She put on a Mercury practice jersey for the first time. She picked up a WNBA-emblazoned basketball and dribbled, listening to the sweet sound of leather on hardwood.

"It felt good to get a ball in my hands and get up and down the court," said Griner, the two-time collegiate player of the year at Baylor and the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft last month. "Sitting in press rooms and doing all the media stuff — sorry guys, but on the court, that's where all the fun is."

And that is where she impressed Monday. She didn't dunk. Or shoot lights out. Or dribble between a teammate's legs. But she showed she is willing to learn, and do it quickly.

"As far as watching a big-man drill and doing the right footwork, she picked it up," Mercury coach Corey Gaines said. "She never had done them before. I never worked out with her before. We had some drills where she didn't know what to do, so she watched someone do it and she did it. Sometimes players don't pick it up as fast. But she picked it up.

"Her basketball IQ was what I was afraid of: how much she knew, how she was going to do it. But she fit right in."

Griner joins a roster that includes former league MVP Diana Taurasi and three-time all-star Penny Taylor, both healthy again.

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"She's awesome," second-year Mercury forward Lynetta Kizer said of Griner. "That's a big kid. One thing about Brittney is she wants to soak everything in. She wants to learn. You know she wants to get better and that's something you don't see out of a lot of young players. They think they know everything. But she's come in and she's learning."

Griner, just starting her WNBA career but already signed to play in the off-season in China, got acquainted with the intricacies of defensive positioning, minding the WNBA's new three-second defensive rule.

"I'm kind of used to camping out (in the lane)," Griner said, laughing. "So no more camping for me. But no more camping for other people on me, either."

During scrimmages, she played both power forward and center. She called the latter the hardest position in the Mercury's system because of that player's responsibility to in-bound the ball after each made basket, then sprint the length of the floor on offense.

In one stretch, Griner made a nice eight-footer, then blocked a shot at the other end.

"It definitely was a track meet," she said of her first pro practice. "Get your rest in while you can. Ask questions, get a breather. It's faster paced. Just like high school to college, college to pros. You got to do it. If you make it through the first day, you'll make it through the second. You just got to keep going."